The Reality of Running: What You Don’t See Online
It’s easy to scroll the internet and get all the highlight reels – finish lines, hard workouts completed, early morning runs – but what often gets ignored is all the little micro moments and struggles that these runners dealt with along the way.
Why Type A Runners Are Hard on Themselves
I’m a pretty type A runner (wow I bet you never noticed!? 😉 and I tend to attract runners who are smart, ambitious and take their training very seriously (regardless of their running pace, they share this in common). As a result of this personality, these types of runners are successful, driven, dedicated and …. a bit too hard on themselves. We tend to over-emphasize the struggles and de-emphasize the wins.
So today I want to give you a bit of a reality check, as someone who has an intimate look at the day to day of runners just like you.
3 Common Running Struggles That Are Completely Normal
Here are 3 things that pretty much every athlete I coach (and I) struggle with that are 100% normal:
- Missing runs or workouts. I’ve never coached a runner who didn’t miss a workout. EVER. Whether it’s illness, a busier than anticipated work day, feeling run down, travel, an injury flare up or niggle, missed workouts happen. And while the training schedule does take all of these things into consideration, sometimes things are just out of your control, or the smarter thing to do is listen to your body. One of my athletes just hit a big PR in her half marathon – 2 months before a 50K trail race. Because I gave her a taper for the half marathon and she has a solid mileage base, we jumped into a very long run right away the weekend after her half-marathon (we did scale back the speed that week though, to help her recover). She did fine the first weekend, but 2 weeks post half marathon the fatigue caught up to her – she cut her long run short by 8 miles, AND skipped her 2nd run that weekend. The key here: I was SO proud of her. She tends to do more and to see her listen to her body and do less was exactly what she needed at that moment. Now she’ll be fresh and ready for another big weekend on the trails this weekend.
- Not hitting the paces in a speed workout or long run. I use VDOT training software which uses a recent race time or time trial to create training paces. For example, if you ran a 5K at 7:40 pace, your “repetition pace” would be 7:04. Repetitions are short intervals, like 200s, or 2 minutes. Your “threshold pace” would be 8:06 – threshold is an estimate of what you can hold for 1 hour maximum. When I schedule a workout for a runner, it will say something like 6 x 2 minutes at 7:04 (repetition pace). The goal isn’t to hit the 7:04 exactly every time — it’s to run at an effort level around this pace. So if one interval comes in at 6:58 and another at 7:10, I do not care. If the runner cannot hit the 7:04 pace at all – I will consider past workouts and other factors — stress, recent training, weather (hot, cold, windy) etc. in determining if this was simply an off day or not. At the end of the day, the effort is more important than hitting the exact pace. And regardless, there are just some days when you can’t muster up the effort needed to nail a workout, especially really difficult ones. That doesn’t mean you won’t hit your goal on race day, it just means you had a bad day. As a coach, I look at trends far more than I look at one workout.
- Questioning Your Garmin or Strava Stats – The other day, I noticed a runner I coach did some sprints during her run which was scheduled to be an easy day (she had a workout the next day). When I asked about her effort (her heart rate was higher than I would like for the goal of this run), she said that her Garmin told her she was missing anaerobic work and suggested sprints, so she did that. The thing is — the watch didn’t know that the next day she had a hard workout. And the Garmin doesn’t follow a periodized training plan — where we are working on anaerobic work a little earlier in the training cycle but just a month out from her half marathon, we actually want to focus on specific endurance (aka running at or around half marathon effort) so she can run a great half marathon. I’m only using this one runner as an example – it happens to a lot of high-achieving, intelligent and data-driven runners, myself included. Just the other day I got a mental boost when my watch finally showed me “productive” for the first time in weeks, even though I know that my training has been boosting my fitness for months, despite saying “maintaining” (& it said “recovery” when I was sick).
The Most Important Factor in Running Progress
Does this make you feel better? The most important training stimulus in running is consistency – if you’re dedicated and consistently doing the work (with a structured plan), you will improve – whether that means being able to run farther, faster, or get stronger.
Happy running,
Nicole Dobransky
PS I have 3 open spots for 1:1 run coaching. If you’re an ambitious female runner who wants a coach to not only create a strategic training plan based on your strengths, weaknesses and goals that challenges you, but also provides the reassurance and perspective you need to feel confident that you’re making the best choices for your training – I’d love to talk with you more! Read more about my coaching here and schedule a call. If you’re already plotting a big fall race, the sooner we start the better your fall training can be!